two point zero
by stitchedmoon
Summary: They had lost everything once before; now it was almost too late for second chances. Set during the Missing Year between XSII and III.
1. 1

**notes**

I don't own Xenosaga, nor am I associated with anyone who does. Some of the events in this story are based on the Missing Year animation series, which takes place between Episodes II and III. Certain events have been changed slightly, either because I thought it would work better in the story or because I was too lazy to look up the correct version. Any other canon errors I've committed are probably unintentional.

This story is dedicated to Ekplixi.

* * *

**2.0.1**

The Federation laboratory stood in contrast to the modern buildings that surrounded it, a low gray sprawl of utilitarian construction anchored among the shining façades of new office towers.

That was one thing he had in common with the place, he thought, making his way to the door at the front of the building. He was something of an anachronism himself, a walking monument to the values and aesthetics of a previous era. He had lived through that era, and not many people could say that anymore. In those days it had been easier to find places like this one, when they could still depend on a regular source of patients like himself. Now that the need for their services had dropped to virtually nothing, they had become a rarity. This one, on Fifth Jerusalem, was among the last that still received government funding--probably just enough to cover its operating expenses, judging by the condition of the waiting room, which looked as if it hadn't seen a renovation in decades. The lab was a time capsule, generically familiar in the way every other one like it had been.

He approached the front desk, where the receptionist, a woman in a plain-looking uniform with Federation government insignia, proceeded to ignore him from behind a bank of wavering holographic screens. The nearest screen displayed some database program that he could tell was at least ten years obsolete from the interface. When she didn't look up after a minute or two, he cleared his throat and changed his stance slightly, and the noise of shifting weights in his legs finally caught her attention.

She blinked at him through the flickering panes of data with mild annoyance, as if his arrival had distracted her from more important matters. "You have an appointment?" Before he could answer, she typed something into a keypad behind the desk and pulled up a file on one of the screens. "Ziggurat Industries Type 8, currently registered to the Kukai Foundation?"

"That's correct." There was no one else in the waiting room; quite possibly his appointment had been the only one scheduled for today.

"Just a moment." The receptionist turned away and spent the next several minutes in what must have been a long-running battle against the ancient database software. Ziggy began to feel awkward standing there and wondered if he should go and sit down on the other side of the room, but he figured it wouldn't be worth the trouble if she called him back right away, so he stayed where he was.

He would have welcomed the chance to sit down, to rest for even a moment, if he had thought it would make any difference. He was tired--not just with day-to-day exhaustion, although the work he did for the Kukai Foundation kept him busy lately. It was more than that, a fatigue that persisted after he slept at night, the chill of mortality creeping up inside him again. He supposed it was the same feeling everyone had eventually, if they lived long enough, but not everyone got to experience it more than once. He didn't consider it a privilege. Every time his life came close to ending, it had been prolonged by artificial means, the inevitable pushed back another decade or so. Until recently, he had hoped this time would be the last.

Because of his legal status as property of the Federation government, he had to comply with certain regulations to ensure that he remained in sound physical and mental condition, sufficient to carry out his assigned functions. In the past the laws had required him to undergo routine life extension along with his regular maintenance, but those laws had been deleted from the books several years ago, swept out in the same wave of reforms that had marked the end of the Life Recycling Act, and for the first time since then, he had the chance to decline the procedure.

He glanced back at the receptionist, her head bowed amid the cluster of screens. If he walked away now, she might not even notice he had gone. The thought of having that choice, of having any choice at all, was so unfamiliar to him it still came as a shock. He had spent the last hundred years following orders, and that was what he was used to. He did not question, he did not hesitate, and above all, he did not refuse: those were the conditions of his existence, and when he was brought back to life he had come to accept them even before he accepted the altered structure of his body. He had learned the rules before he relearned how to walk. He hadn't had a choice then, and it would take more than a change in the laws to convince him that he had one now.

But that wasn't the only reason why he was here, or so he told himself; it wasn't just force of habit or a stubborn sense of necessity or even what remained of his instinct for self-preservation. If it were up to him, he might have refused the operation this time, but he had more than just himself to consider now. That was the problem with having a choice: whatever he decided, he wouldn't be the only one affected.

"So you're definitely going through with it?" Juli had said a few months earlier, as they stood by the gate at the space port terminal on Second Miltia. MOMO waited a few steps behind, just out of earshot. "You're sure?"

"I'm sure. It's already been arranged through the Foundation. They'll be covering the expenses, so ...."

"I see. And is that what you want?"

At first he didn't understand what she was asking; it was not a question he often got invited to answer. He considered the safest possible response. "I want what's best for you and MOMO. If either of you should require my assistance at any time--"

"Oh, forget it. That's not what I asked you. Just think about it, all right? I'm sure you'll come up with something."

He nodded, not wanting to argue.

"Well then." Juli reached up, brushed her fingers lightly against the side of his face as if pushing aside an invisible curtain. Then she turned away abruptly, without saying goodbye. MOMO recognized this as a sign that they had finished their conversation, and she rushed back and embraced him one last time.

"I'm going to miss you," she said, her voice strained with the effort not to cry in front of him. "Will you come back to visit us sometimes?"

"As often as I can." He stepped back at arms' length and bent down to look her in the eyes, and it struck him that he had forgot, until now, what it felt like to miss someone--not in the distant, resigned way of longing for someone he knew he would never see again, but with the understanding that she would be just out of reach for a while, separated from him by a finite distance in space. He couldn't decide if this was better or worse.

A few minutes later he was boarding the _Elsa_ for the return trip to the Foundation, and he watched as Second Miltia shrank to a cloudy hemisphere and then to a pinpoint lost among other stars before the iridescent fog of hyperspace closed around the ship.

During the next few months Juli had called several times to discuss the details of the operation, and when it turned out that the only facility that still offered life extension was on Fifth Jerusalem, she had scheduled the appointment for him and arranged with the Foundation for temporary leave from his assignment there. The news of his impending visit delighted MOMO, and whenever Juli called, MOMO begged for a chance to speak to him afterward. When she ran out of things to talk about, she wished him good night and let Juli have a word with him privately.

"MOMO seems to be doing well," he had said on one such occasion. "I'm glad."

"I am too. I was afraid she wouldn't like living here, but she keeps telling me how much she loves her new home." She laughed then, with a note of bitterness, as if she had said something ironic. "That's what she calls it--'home'. You know, I've lived here for years and I've never thought of it that way. It's just a place I go to sleep when I'm not working. It's strange, isn't it? When you're alone, you don't even notice how alone you are until you're not anymore. And then you wonder how you could have lived that way for so long without realizing it."

Because he couldn't think of an appropriate response, he said nothing.

"Sorry, you must have other things to do. I'm probably wasting your time." She looked up at him from the screen, a faint, frail smile on her lips. "I'll see you in a week, then?"

"Yes."

"Take care," she said, and the screen went blank.

A week later he had arrived here on his own, following Juli's directions to the maintenance lab. She had promised to meet him there in a few hours, after she left work; the operation, which required intricate and extensive nanosurgery to reverse the deterioration of his remaining organic parts, would take at least that long.

At the front desk, the receptionist glared back up at him, looking surprised and, if possible, more annoyed than before to find him still waiting there. "Go ahead inside. Room 017."

"Thank you," he said, but she had already started typing again.

* * *

He awoke staring at a stained grey ceiling, with no memory of his surroundings or of the last several hours, though he could tell from his internal clock how much time had passed. His limbs, when he recovered awareness of them, felt rigid and heavy, but he managed to turn his head in the direction of the only other presence his sensors detected in the room.

She must have come here directly from the office; she sat in one of two chairs along the wall, still wearing her overcoat. In her lap she held a connection gear, and a small holographic screen hovered in front of her face, displaying an official-looking document. She had been reading with a frown of concentration scoring a deep line between her eyebrows, and she didn't notice he was awake until she glanced up from the screen a few minutes later.

"The operation went well, in case you were wondering," she said. The screen above the connection gear flickered as she put it aside. "You'll have to come back for a follow-up in a few weeks, but so far the results look good. About seventy percent of your organic tissue was successfully repaired." The words were as neutral and clinical as the equipment in this room, but she seemed embarrassed to say them, as if she had brought up something awkward and intimate. "Ah ... so how are you feeling?"

He lifted his right arm off the side of the bed, clenched and unclenched his fingers a few times. The joints felt stiff and numb, and invisible needles bristled in his arm when he moved. He closed his hand into a fist and let it fall back to his side. "... I'll be all right."

"I'm sure you will." She had watched with barely concealed amusement as he tried out his arm, and he could hear it in her voice when she spoke. "Would you like to come back with me now, or would you rather stay here for a while longer? They said the recovery time might vary, so you can rest for as long as you need to."

"What is your recommendation?"

Juli shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not you."

He stared up at the ceiling again, and after a moment attempted to raise himself from the maintenance bed, which had been set back to a nearly horizontal position. Despite the resistance in his organic parts, his synthetics appeared to be functioning normally, and he managed to stand without too much difficulty. "If you don't mind, I'd rather not stay here any longer than necessary."

"I understand." She laughed dryly and stood up. "I can't say I blame you. Well, let's get out of here."

On the way out, Juli signed some forms and arranged to have a copy of the bill sent to the Foundation, and then she took out her connection gear and called MOMO. "We're just leaving now."

"Great!" said MOMO. "I'll start getting dinner ready. Did it go okay?"

"Yes, I think so. He's awake now, and there weren't any problems with the surgery. You can ask him about it later."

A screen in one corner of the waiting area silently replayed footage of a Gnosis attack that had occurred a few days ago. The video sequence looped after a few minutes and then abruptly cut off, replaced by the image of a newscaster delivering a wordless commentary against a chart tracking the locations of previous attacks. Ziggy stood watching the broadcast until Juli came up behind him and touched his arm--startling him, although he didn't let it show.

"Ready to go?" she said. "I thought you didn't want to wait."

"Ah, right." The news channel had switched back to showing the attack footage, and he turned away from the screen. It seemed indecent to keep watching the same scene over and over again, like forcing those involved to relive their last moments, even though he knew their suffering was over.

They went out to Juli's car in silence, and when they had driven some distance from the lab she said, "It's depressing, isn't it?"

"Hmm?" He had been staring out the front window since the ride started, and now he looked over at her as if shaken out of a trance. The setting sun cast a coppery glow on her face and hands, reminding him of the first time they had spoken alone in the orbital tower, more than a year ago. Somehow it seemed longer after everything that had happened.

"The news. Just imagine having to argue about it all day under the pretense of getting something done." She sighed, narrowing her eyes against the sunset glare. "The Subcommittee's been in hysterics ever since the latest attacks started. We've turned the data inside-out looking for clues, and no one has the slightest idea what's stirred them up this time, let alone what to do about it."

"It sounds exhausting."

"An understatement," said Juli, and they were both quiet again as the highway streamed past the windows and a stain of red light soaked through the clouds around the sun. For some reason the color of the sky made him uncomfortable, reminded him of the dreams he'd been having lately. He closed his eyes, resisting the inclination to fall asleep, although he still felt dull from the sedatives they'd given him at the lab.

It was dark by the time they pulled up to the apartment complex. Juli stopped the car and got out and waited for him to do the same.

"Welcome home," she said, smiling ironically at her own joke.


	2. 2

**2.0.2**

Later that night, not long after MOMO had gone to bed, Juli set aside the files she had been working on and got up from her chair in the living room. "I guess I should be getting some sleep myself."

She looked over at Ziggy, but he gave no indication of having heard, so she headed into the kitchen to put away the dishes MOMO had cleaned after dinner. When she turned around and saw him waiting in the doorway, she almost dropped the glass she was holding.

"Can I help you with that?"

"No, I've got it." She turned away quickly to conceal her embarrassment at being caught off guard. But a few minutes later she thrust a stack of plates at him. "They go in the cabinet next to the stove."

He reached up. "This one?"

"Yes," she said, watching him put them away. "Thank you."

"It's no trouble."

"I'm still getting used to having MOMO here," she said, pulling out a drawer and sorting silverware into it. Noticing that he seemed to be waiting around for something else to do, she handed him another plate. "Next cabinet over, on your right. You know, I hardly even used this kitchen when I was living here by myself, except to heat up something from a package. Now we take turns making dinner, though it's usually MOMO who ends up doing most of the work. I feel like I'm the one being taken care of."

"Well, MOMO seems to enjoy being helpful. What about this?"

"On the counter over there. I know, but it feels strange for me to depend on someone else. I'm not used to it. I thought was doing fine on my own; I even prided myself on being independent, on not needing anyone to help me, and now I can hardly imagine life without her. I guess I'm weaker than I thought." She laughed, drying her hands on a towel hanging near the sink.

"I wouldn't consider that a weakness," he said when she had turned to face him again. "Surviving on your own requires strength, but so does accepting support when it's offered to you. If you're used to doing everything by yourself, the second way is more difficult than the first."

"Oh, really? And you learned this by surviving on your own all this time, did you?"

If he noticed her half-smile or the edge of irony in her voice, he ignored it. "Actually, I learned it after I met you and MOMO."

"I see," said Juli, lowering her eyes. "It seems we all have a lot to learn from each other. Having MOMO here ... it's made me realize some things about myself, too."

He nodded. "I've been thinking about what you asked me, on Second Miltia."

"Oh?" It surprised her that he had remembered; that had been months ago, and she had nearly forgot about it herself. "And have you thought of an answer?"

As he stepped away from the counter she noticed that he could move quietly, even gracefully, if he had to. "Juli ... ah ...." He still seemed uncomfortable addressing her by her first name, as if it represented something too familiar, a transgression of boundaries, and he couldn't look her in the eye when he said it. She saw him tense with an involuntary movement, like a shudder, and he shook his head. "No, never mind. I'm sorry if I--"

"Don't be sorry." She turned away, feeling suddenly exhausted. "I guess I'll go to bed. Will you need anything?"

"No, I'll be fine. Thank you for letting me stay here."

Juli stared at him for a moment, half hoping his expression would reveal some trace of what he had left unsaid, but his face was a perfect blank. And yet something had changed just then; she could feel it. Some invisible structure between them had collapsed and they were back to treating each other with the awkward formality of professional acquaintances, as they had done before they got to know each other, before the events of the past year. "Of course," she said, hoping the warmth she forced into her voice would conceal the disappointment. "I wish we had more to offer you than just the living room, but--"

"That is more than sufficient. I appreciate it."

"Well, good night."

He nodded in affirmation, as if she had just given him an order. "Good night."

* * *

After she had gone, he walked out to the living room and stood in front of the window. He wasn't tired, and now that he had begun to recover from the side effects of his operation, his physical and mental faculties were sharper than they had been in years. Even though he knew from experience what to expect, it still took him time to adjust. The disorientation that resulted was the same as if he had reversed his age by several years in the space of a few hours.

Outside, the lights of Fifth Jerusalem's capital mirrored the sky, and both seemed to go on forever. He had the feeling that he had been here before, or some place like it, although he didn't know when or where. That was another thing about the operation--it dredged through his memories, some of which had lain buried at the back of his mind for years, and brought them to the surface at inexplicable moments. Some of them were still painfully clear, but others were like fragments of glass eroded by the sea; they could have been part of anything once. How many times, in this life or the one before it, had he looked out on a night like this one?

The sharper fragments cut deep enough to take away his breath. They caught him off balance, leaving him foundering to regain his bearings in the present. For a moment, there in the kitchen, he had thought he knew what to say to Juli, but the answer had escaped him just as suddenly, displaced by the memory of something else--_the way he had felt when he was close to her, like staggering out of a cold gray place and feeling the sun on his eyes, and remembering there was such a thing as sunlight_--and when he caught himself and remembered where he was, Juli was still standing there, in the same place where the other had been, where he thought he might still see her afterimage outlined on the darkness, and he forgot what he had been about to say a moment before.

But his memories had been surfacing of their own accord for a while now, even before the operation. Around the time the Subcommittee contracted him for the _Pleroma_ assignment he had started having nightmares again, and in the last six months they had become so frequent that he dreaded going to sleep, knowing what awaited him when he did. At least when he was awake he could push them back down when they surfaced; asleep, he was at their mercy.

The familiar feeling persisted, so he switched on his visual interface to distract himself. Most of the life forms in the building were asleep at this hour, including MOMO and Juli, who showed up as glowing points amid a scattering of numbers and data when he looked toward their rooms. He found the reminder of their presence comforting, but couldn't shake the deeper unease that had taken hold after he woke up this afternoon. Already he wondered if he had made the right decision, or whether sentencing himself to a few more decades of this kind of existence hadn't been a mistake after all. Still, it had bought him time to put his life in order, to make one last attempt at setting things right, and perhaps that was enough for now.

He didn't sleep that night; he didn't trust himself to let down his guard. The stars turned slowly above the city, and he watched until they faded in the light reaching up from the horizon.

* * *

In the morning he left for the Foundation, and when he arrived on the _Durandal_ he received instructions to report to the bridge.

"So, how'd it go?" said Jr., when Ziggy stepped off the elevator. "Man, you don't look any different. I figured she'd have talked you into the full upgrade, you know, Realian parts and everything." Jr. eyed him critically, leaning back against a console with his arms folded and his head tipped to the side. Despite his stature, Jr. had the easy confidence about him of someone accustomed to being in command, and he could settle comfortably into his surroundings with the assurance that he belonged here. Behind him, the _Durandal_'s crew quietly carried on their duties above the hum of the engines and the electronic noises from the controls.

"It was my understanding that the Foundation only agreed to pay for life extension." Ziggy shifted his stance uncomfortably, aware of sidelong glances from one or two of the 100-Series Realians seated nearby. They appeared to have taken a passing interest in the conversation, although they suddenly became preoccupied with the controls when they caught him looking back. The 100 Series on this ship all seemed to look up to him the way MOMO did, although he couldn't tell whether they did so in conscious imitation of MOMO or because he happened to match the criteria for some sort of archetypal figure encoded in their basic personality structure. At least now he thought he understood why Juli had found their resemblance to her own daughter so unbearable; they had enough in common with each other, and likely with Sakura as well, to suggest that they were near-perfect copies of the same individual, but it was precisely their similarities that made any individual variation immediately apparent. It didn't bother him that the 100 Series reminded him of MOMO, but it did sharpen his awareness of her absence.

"Yeah, I know, but I was still kind of hoping." Jr. gave an exaggerated shrug that suggested he hadn't been entirely serious. "Anyway, I know it's kind of short notice, but I've got an errand for you, if you think you're up for it. You get a chance to watch the news lately?"

He nodded. "I saw that there was another Gnosis attack on a civilian fleet a couple of days ago, if that's what you mean."

"Yeah, exactly. Those were our ships they trashed--well, officially they belonged to one of the Foundation's subsidiary companies, but it's pretty much the same--and as far as I know, no one's been out to that region of space to investigate yet. I'd take the _Durandal_ there myself, but we're kind of busy at the moment. Since the _Elsa_'s headed out there anyway, I asked Matthews to swing by and check it out."

"And you want me to go along? In what capacity?"

Jr. hesitated, scratching his head. "Well ... basically, clean-up duty. Someone's got to survey the damage, retrieve the ships' records, that sort of thing. It wouldn't be just you. chaos already said he'd do it, so you'd have help. Think you can manage?"

He nodded again, thoughtfully. So far his responsibilities during his stay on the _Durandal_ had consisted of helping the maintenance crew around the ship and running occasional errands between the Foundation and its subsidiaries. Although he was easily capable of doing such work, he had been accustomed to taking on more difficult assignments, and in the absence of a challenge he felt restless. He wasn't bored, exactly, because boredom required a certain sense of entitlement, or at least the basic assumption that his work should be entertaining, and he had learned early in his new life to expect nothing in return for what he did. Still, he objected to being enlisted for tasks beneath his ability, if only because he thought he could be more useful elsewhere. Investigating the aftermath of a Gnosis attack wasn't on par with his last few missions either, but at least it would be a change of pace. "I understand. I'll get ready to leave at once."

Jr. waved a hand dismissively. "Nah, take the rest of the day off. The _Elsa_'s not heading out till tomorrow. Besides, I bet you could use some rest after your surgery."

"That's not really necessary, but thank you."

"No problem. By the way, how's MOMO?"

He glanced past Jr. briefly; at the mention of MOMO's name a few of the Realians had looked back in his direction. "Oh ... she told me to say hello to you, actually. I think she's been adjusting well. She seemed happy when I saw her."

"That's good to hear." Jr. sighed and slouched back against the console; he even slouched with a certain air of authority, as if it were an executive privilege. "Well, that's pretty much all I wanted to talk to you about. So, uh, you can go ahead and maintain yourself or whatever you gotta do, I guess."

Ziggy was about to say something, but he stopped and shook his head. "Right. I'll report to the _Elsa_ tomorrow."


	3. 3

**2.0.3**

The _Elsa_ gated out of hyperspace in the middle of a debris field. A record of the attack that had destroyed these ships was self-evident in the fragments of torn-open cargo holds and scattered shipping containers that littered this sector like flotsam in the waters of a reef.

"Looks like the Gnosis showed up to ambush them as soon as they jumped out of the trade column," said Captain Matthews, scowling at the wreckage drifting across the Elsa's main viewing screen. "Well, you guys know what to do. Take down the usual information and anything that looks _un_usual, as per Little Master's orders. Oh yeah, and if you notice anything expensive floating around out there, it wouldn't hurt to stick it in your pocket, if you know what I mean." Below the Captain's seat, Hammer started to protest, but Matthews aimed a glare and a boot heel at him, and the threat of one or the other shut him up. "Otherwise it's just gonna go to waste. It's technically Foundation property anyway." Matthews settled back in his chair and tugged his cap down over his forehead. "Now get going!"

"Right," said chaos, who was used to the Captain's rhetoric and remained undaunted by it. He turned and headed off the bridge. Ziggy started after him, and they made their way to the AGWS hangar on the lower deck.

"So, what do you think of working for the Foundation so far?" said chaos over the intercom, when they had both boarded AGWS units and waded a short way out into the debris field. Behind them, the _Elsa_ hung like a model ship against a flat background of stars. The wrecked hull of one of the cargo ships drifted in the distance.

The _Elsa_ had been traveling for several days already, stopping at trade ports along the way to conduct business on behalf of the Foundation. The mission so far had consisted entirely of such routine stops; investigating the Gnosis incident had been tacked on as an afterthought, one of the last points on the _Elsa_'s outbound itinerary. In the meantime, Captain Matthews had kept the rest of the crew, including Ziggy, occupied with mundane assignments. At every stop, cargo and equipment had to be loaded or unloaded, merchandise had to be inspected, repairs and adjustments had to be made. The work left little time for idleness, and when the others took a break and went off for a drink in the _Elsa_'s bar or at a local hangout in one of the trade ports, Ziggy declined and retired to his own quarters to rest. Doing manual labor wasn't physically tiring so much as mentally exhausting. Instead of keeping his mind engaged with strategic problems, it left his thoughts free to wander, and more often lately they seemed to end up in places he didn't want to go.

While he thought about how to respond, he followed chaos' AGWS in the direction of the nearest cargo vessel. The debris became more concentrated closer to the ship, and Ziggy had to focus more of his attention on maneuvering his own AGWS unit around crumpled plates of scrap metal and pieces of ruined equipment as they approached.

"I guess it's been ...." He stopped, noticing a movement at the edge of his sight, and sidestepped to avoid collision with a shipping container crushed in on itself like a giant accordion and still moving with considerable speed.

"That looked close," said chaos after it had tumbled past them. "Sorry, didn't mean to distract you."

"It's all right. I've been a little distracted lately, anyway."

"I thought you might be. I don't mean to pry, but I noticed you seem to be worried about something. Is everything okay with MOMO and Juli?"

"Yes." Although he had no direct evidence to the contrary, he felt dishonest when he said it. MOMO had seemed fine when he saw her a few days ago, but he felt as though an impassable space had opened up between them since their parting on Second Miltia, and even though MOMO begged him to visit her when they were apart and pleaded with him to stay when they were together, he knew she didn't require his protection as she once had. Logically, he knew it was better that she learn how to protect herself, as inevitably she would. But in a dim, irrational corner at the back of his mind--and he stopped there, pushing the thought back before he could make out what it was.

Besides, with the Gnosis attacks still escalating, he was more concerned that MOMO and Juli would need his protection after all--or rather, they would need more than he could provide, because he knew the limits of his own strength and he knew that in the event of a real attack, it wouldn't make much difference whether he was there to protect them or not. He had failed to save MOMO from harm before, so why should he now believe that he could stand as a reliable shield against the Gnosis--or, for that matter, against any other threat? At most he could offer the illusion of security, which was worse than worthless, it was dangerous.

Maybe his doubts about the operation were justified, and the decision to prolong his life really had been a mistake. He couldn't give Juli and MOMO any real peace of mind, and if he let himself get close to them now, he would only risk causing them greater harm. He couldn't even trust himself to stay composed under pressure anymore, not after the incident six months ago. Suppose Voyager found out his attachment to them and tried to use them against him? But that was another thought he didn't want to follow to its conclusion. He already knew the outcome because it had happened before; he still dreamed about it most nights, and woke up with his teeth and fists clenched and a cold, throbbing sensation in the side of his head, an echo of the last thing he'd ever experienced before his life began all over again. He wouldn't make the same mistake this time, even if it meant he had to protect Juli and MOMO by keeping them at a distance.

"This isn't good." chaos' voice came over the intercom, startling him out of his train of thought. He looked up to see the other AGWS unit hovering a short distance ahead, and pushed his own AGWS to catch up with it. "I'm afraid something terrible happened to this ship," said chaos, turning toward him as he approached. "Not just the Gnosis. Look."

chaos' AGWS stood in the midst of a field of debris of roughly uniform shapes and sizes. Ziggy couldn't tell what the objects were at first; they were small, crumpled, indistinct, but then one drifted near his unit's field of view and as it turned he caught sight of a stiff white outstretched hand, grasping at the void for a moment before it went under.

"It's shocking, I know," said chaos, sounding apologetic. "It looks as though the ship's cargo bay and airlocks were left open, so they must have thrown themselves overboard rather than be caught by the Gnosis."

He tried to swallow, but his throat felt frozen solid. "So it was a mass suicide."

"Maybe," said chaos. "Maybe they were just trying to save themselves from a worse fate. Either way, there's not much we can do for them now. Once we get back to the _Elsa_, we'll have to notify the Foundation so they can take care of the bodies. In the meantime, though, we should have a look at that ship."

"Understood." He turned and started after chaos, and the two moved on through the frozen field of the dead.

After they had returned to the _Elsa_, he called Juli from the ship's UMN terminal. He had less privacy here than in his room on the _Durandal_, so he felt somewhat uncomfortable when Juli steered the conversation into personal territory.

"I've spoken with the Foundation about scheduling your follow-up," she said. "I don't know the details yet, but it should be some time after you get back. In the meantime, how have you been?"

"I'm all right." It wasn't exactly true. Seeing the victims of the Gnosis attack had left him with a strange unsettled feeling that hadn't subsided yet, but he saw no need to mention that; the Subcommittee would receive a copy of the Foundation's report on the incident later. As far as his own concerns about other matters, he didn't want to trouble her with those either.

But she must have sensed something was wrong anyway, or else she was upset for some other reason, because she sighed and dropped her gaze from the screen. "I think MOMO wants to talk to you. I'll put her on."

"Juli," he said, but she had already turned away, and he stared through the holographic window into an empty room.

* * *

It hadn't been the same since that night--or rather, _he_ hadn't been the same. Their last few conversations on the UMN had been brief and businesslike, devoid even of the hesitant familiarity they had shared before. She sensed him pulling away, but there was nothing overtly impolite about his withdrawal; if anything, it was his sudden, excessive politeness that exasperated her, along with the knowledge that she could hardly find him at fault for it.

Well, maybe he was busy. She couldn't blame him for that either, not when she had pressing matters of her own to worry about. As much as she had missed talking to him lately, his reticence was among the least of her concerns. It took most of her energy just to stay focused on her work amid the throes of whatever daily crisis the SOCE was experiencing.

Even MOMO seemed preoccupied lately. She had volunteered to help one of Juli's associates with a research project that required the use her observational functions, and she spent her mornings and afternoons processing data at a government lab in a different part of the city, returning home early in the evening to do her chores. On nights when Juli didn't have to stay late at the office, they still had dinner together, but more often now she stepped off the elevator onto their floor at 0800 or 0900, and when she got inside found MOMO already in her room and a covered plate waiting by her own place at the table with a note. Sometimes, reading what MOMO had written to her, she felt an ache in her throat and wondered what she had done to earn such unquestioning devotion from a child, especially now that they rarely even saw each other for more than a few hectic minutes over breakfast.

She hadn't mentioned it to Ziggy, and she wondered if she had left him with the impression that she and MOMO spent more time together than they actually did, or that she had long since dismissed whatever doubts she might have had that their present living arrangement would work out. She wanted to believe that it would, but the doubts persisted.

Over and over she thought, _I don't deserve this._ For months it had kept her awake at night, after she had set aside her work and could no longer block out the thoughts that had crowded at the edges of her mind all day. Even now, she couldn't convince herself that she actually loved MOMO, not the way MOMO loved her. MOMO had no choice; she was programmed that way, designed to make her mother happy. But Juli was human and far from perfect, and had an instinctive distaste for things that glittered too brightly or promised too much. Joachim must have overlooked that when he created the child he thought she would have wanted. In MOMO's eyes Juli was infallible, a perfect mother image. How could she ever live up to that?

Ziggy would probably know how to answer that question--or at the very least, he wouldn't condemn her for asking it. But since that night she hadn't been able to ask, and she didn't know what he would say if she did. After what he had told her about depending on others, it seemed strange for him to leave her to her own devices now, but maybe he had his reasons. In any case, she understood what his silence meant: from now on, she was on her own.

* * *

The nightmare ended, as it always did, a moment before the bullet should have hit. He never felt the impact, but his head ached as if the memory was buried in him somewhere, in what was left of his original body, the bone and tissue retaining what his conscious mind tried to forget. He sat upright, blinking away red afterimages as his eyes adjusted to the lack of light in the storage room. Taking note of his surroundings made him calmer; he was still on the _Elsa_, heading back to the Foundation and the _Durandal_. They had turned around yesterday after filing a report on the Gnosis attack.

When he had recovered his bearings, he got up and checked the time and the records of his last maintenance session. An error in one of the diagnostic subroutines had shut down the program in the middle of its scheduled run, so that instead of waking up at a set time when it was finished, he had overslept. That might account for the unusual intensity of his dreams, but what troubled him more at the moment was the error itself. Those lapses had been occurring more often lately, and if they were due to a malfunction in one of his internal systems, it should have come up during his surgery. He made a mental note to ask Juli about it the next time he spoke with her.

He rode the elevator to the upper deck and found the crew standing around the UMN terminal, Hammer and Tony jostling each other for a better view of the screen and blocking everyone else's view in the process.

"What's happening now?" said Hammer. "I can't see!"

Tony elbowed him aside. "I can't either with your head in the way!"

"All right, break it up." Captain Matthews strolled in between the two and flung them apart like bar room doors. "_No one_ can see the screen with you two morons standing in front of it." He took a few steps back and noticed Ziggy standing in the corridor. "Well, look who's finally booted up. Good afternoon, sunshine."

"I'm sorry. My maintenance program appears to have malfunctioned. What's going on?"

"See for yourself." Matthews jabbed a finger at the screen, where grainy security-camera footage showed people fleeing down a crowded street, pursued by huge forms that lumbered and swung blindly at them and smaller ones that swam through the air above their heads.

"_--all we know at this time is that the attacks took place within hours of each other and that they targeted the capital cities of three Federation planets, leading some to speculate that they were part of a coordinated assault--_"

"They're calling it terrorism, can you believe that?" said Matthews, shaking his head.

chaos stood some distance from the others and had watched in silence until now. "It certainly is strange."

"_--the Contact Subcommittee is expected to release an official statement later today and has already announced that it will be investigating--_"

Ziggy stared at the screen until the images and voices became indistinct, and then he closed his eyes. He had no interest in seeing any more.


	4. 4

**2.0.4**

"Terrorism, Dr. Mizrahi?" The Subcommittee member leaned forward in his chair, arching a skeptical eyebrow.

"That's what the press has been calling it. Gnosis Terrorism. I didn't invent the term, but I suggest you take a look at the evidence before you dismiss it." Juli indicated the large screen behind her, taking advantage of the diversion to conceal a yawn behind her hand. In the last three days since the attacks began, she had hardly slept at all and had stopped by her apartment only once, for a few hours, to check on MOMO and to give her a list of contacts and some money for groceries. The remaining time she had spent on Subcommittee business, attending emergency meetings, issuing statements to the press, and making conference calls to so many government officials and corporate leaders that they all started to look and sound alike. The hours and days began to blur together, so that if she weren't already in the habit of checking the time constantly, she would have had no idea how much had elapsed. "As you can see, these data, from preliminary investigations conducted within the last seventy-two hours, suggest a concerted pattern of attacks on civilian targets in highly populated areas, in a manner consistent with known methods of conventional terrorism. Whereas further information will be required in order to confirm these findings and to establish an identity and motive for the individuals or groups responsible, I have proposed that a special investigation be undertaken immediately--with the Subcommittee's approval, of course. I trust you've all read the draft of the proposal you received in preparation for this meeting?"

The other six members of the Subcommittee responded that they had. Juli wondered how many of them actually had time to read the entire proposal; she had spent all of last night working on it.

"What about this Uzuki person you've chosen to lead the investigation? The name sounds familiar."

"Jin Uzuki served as an officer in the Federation Army during the Miltia Conflict," said Juli. "You'll find his full biography in the attached files I sent with the proposal. On the basis of his past military experience, I believe that he is well qualified to lead this investigation. But if you'd like to recommend someone else, by all means ...." A few moments of uncomfortable silence passed, punctuated by Juli clearing her throat. "Well then. If there are no revisions, then I suggest we proceed at once. I'll notify Mr. Uzuki as soon as the meeting is over."

She called him from her office after the meeting. "The Subcommittee approved the investigation," she said, as soon as the connection went through.

"Good afternoon, Dr. Mizrahi. Glad to hear it."

"I'm glad too," said Juli, suddenly feeling weak with relief or exhaustion or a combination of both. She backed into her chair and sat down and raked a hand through her hair. "When can you start?"

"I have everything ready, so I can get started right away."

She sighed. "Wonderful. Thank you so much for your help. I'm sorry to trouble you like this--"

"Not at all," said Jin, smiling in that strange way of his that always struck her as being too earnest and a little sad. "It's my pleasure. Besides, I needed the work anyway. Shion keeps bothering me about getting a real job."

Juli forced a smile in return. "I hope she approves of this one. Well, I'll look forward to receiving your reports. Good luck, Jin."

"You too, Dr. Mizrahi." He bowed his head slightly, and the transmission ended.

She stared at the screen until she realized she was staring at a blank screen, blinked, got up, fixed herself a cup of instant tea, and sat down to go through the dozens of new notifications that had appeared in her inbox since the last time she'd checked a few hours ago. After a few minutes of skimming over message headers without comprehending any of them, she gave up; she was too tired to concentrate, and the words on the screen blurred like wet ink.

Turning her chair around to face the window, she held the cup to her mouth and breathed in the steam. Clouds moved past the window like glaciers, monumental and slow, and she stared into the sky and felt calm for the first time in days, as if by sitting still she had finally given the turbulence inside her a chance to settle. She finished her tea and went back to work.

That evening she returned to her apartment at 0730 after calling to tell MOMO she was leaving the office. The smells of cooking still hung in the air when she walked in, although it was later than the time they usually had dinner and she had expected to find the kitchen empty, the covered plate and note in their accustomed places. Instead MOMO rushed to meet her at the door and led her by the arm into the dining area, where she had set the table for both of them.

"Um, I thought you would like it if I made your favorite," said MOMO shyly, pulling out a chair for Juli to sit in. "At least, my database said it was--"

Too dazed to sit down at first, she stared at the dishes on the table, half-expecting the entire surreal arrangement to vanish as soon as she blinked or looked away. When no such thing happened, she seated herself, grateful to be off her feet; the caffeine in her last cup of tea had worn off, leaving her feeling faint and lightheaded again. "Thank you, MOMO. That was very kind of you."

"Do you like it? I wanted to do something special for you, since you haven't been home in a few days, and .... Mommy, are you okay?"

Juli had pushed her plate to the side and bent over the tabletop, burying her face in her hands. _Home._ She'd hardly thought of MOMO at all in the last few days; even the frantic pace of her work had seemed a welcome escape, an excuse not to return. But MOMO had waited for her, missed her.

Her stomach turned as she pushed back her chair and stood, bracing herself against the table edge. "MOMO, I ... I'm sorry, but I'm not feeling very well. I think I'm just going to lie down."

"Oh." MOMO sounded disappointed, but Juli couldn't bear to look up to see her expression. "All right ... well, let me know if you need anything."

Juli pushed in her chair and walked across the living room, looking back only when she had reached the hallway on the opposite side. The light in the kitchen fanned out into the living room, and through the doorway she saw MOMO sitting alone at the table, staring down into her lap, while the dinner she had prepared grew cold in front of her. Juli bit her lip and turned and marched the rest of the way down the darkened hall into her bedroom, where she curled around the sharp ache in her stomach and wrung her eyelids shut against the burning in her eyes, and tried not to think of what he would say if he knew what she had done.

* * *

His second appointment for life extension ended up delayed until the initial widespread panic following the terror attacks had subsided. Once the investigation was under way and the clamor in the SOCE had dropped to a manageable level, Juli took the afternoon off and met him at the lab.

He was still unconscious when she entered the room--a different room from before, but it might as well have been the same; it looked identical to the first--so she sat down to read over his charts while she waited.

Despite what MOMO seemed to believe, Juli was no cybernetics expert. Few people specialized in that field anymore, probably because those who did ended up working in places like this. But she had enough general knowledge that with a little instruction she probably could have operated most of the equipment here, and she could certainly understand a maintenance report. She read over it twice, then sighed through her teeth and switched off the display of her connection gear and tossed it with deliberate carelessness onto the empty chair next to her. Although she had only spent a few hours in the office this morning before coming here, she already felt exhausted, strung out on several weeks' worth of deadlines and petty conflicts and compounded stress. And _this_--she glowered at the connection gear, wondering if she should go over the report one last time to be sure--_this_ wasn't helping.

She got up and walked over to the bed. Staring down at him now, she noticed that his skin had a grayish cast, darkening around the eyes to the shade of a bruise. Had she never noticed before, or did he just look that way because of the lighting in this room, the dull gray walls and the slight chill in the air that made everything seem hollow and cold? She had the sudden urge to touch him to make sure he was still warm, because she couldn't tell, watching him sleep, whether he was even alive. The steady pulse of the monitors attached to his life support systems should have reassured her, but they didn't.

After he had recovered consciousness, she showed him the report. "Not to alarm you, but I'm a bit concerned with your test results this time."

He leaned forward. "What's the matter?"

"Here, see for yourself." Juli held out the connection gear. "It's hard to tell at this point, but from what I can gather, it looks as though the effects of the previous treatment are wearing off more rapidly than they're supposed to."

His brow furrowed as he stared down at the holographic page. "Yes, I can see that."

"The rate of deterioration is abnormally high," she said, hoping she sounded calmer than she felt, "and that worries me. If it continues, you'll need another operation in just a few years. Assuming it doesn't get worse."

Still frowning, he looked up at her. "You mean, if it accelerates, then ...."

Juli nodded. "In that case, you could be back to where you were before the operation in less than a year."

"I see." He glanced back at the report for a moment, then dropped his hand to the arm rest. "Then there would have been no point in undergoing life extension at all."

"Provided it continues, and I'm not sure it will. But either way, it seems your lifespan may be more limited than we thought." Juli suddenly realized how absurd she sounded, discussing his fate in the same cold technical language she used when giving a presentation at work. She didn't want to be cold and technical, not now, when she really felt like crying--but she didn't want to do that in front of him either.

Months ago, when he had finally agreed to have the procedure done, she had allowed herself to hope that he would still be around for another ten or twenty years, and on that assumption she had taken his presence for granted. The possibility that something might go wrong had never occurred to her. Modern developments in nanosurgery had relegated such failures almost entirely to the annals of medical history. But he was obsolete, practically medical history himself. He already existed on borrowed time, and the grace period was almost over.

She reached for the hand at his side, then hesitated and pulled back her own hand before they touched. He never noticed; he wasn't watching. She bit her lip as the room went blurry against her eyes. "I'm sorry, Jan."

The mention of his former name got his attention, and he looked up. "It's all right." At first his expression seemed unreadable, but she realized that was just because she hadn't expected him to react this way--not with concern or disappointment, but with relief. As if he had been hoping for a way out of this all along.

"Well, doesn't it worry you?" She heard her voice rising and had to fight to keep it down. Her temper had been shorter than usual lately, and his indifference set it off like a fuse. "Don't you realize what this means? Do you _want_ to die?"

"I don't know." He didn't seem so relieved now, and he shook his head slowly, as if it hurt to do so. "I'm not sure it matters either way. If I'm not dead already, I might as well be. ... Damn it, I've been so tired. I'm not asking you to try to understand, but ...." He stopped, aware of having said too much. The calm front had slipped to expose something jagged and broken underneath, something he must not have wanted her to see. He steadied himself, and in the next breath he had reverted to speaking in a monotone. "I'm sorry. I wasn't expecting this to happen. I think I may need some time to think about it. In the meantime, it's probably best if we don't try to prolong my life anymore. It does not appear to be necessary."

"Well, that's wonderful." The sharpness in her voice surprised them both, and he winced, turning his head aside as if she had struck him. "Why don't you tell MOMO what you just told me? Tell her you don't think she's worth living for?"

"I didn't--"

"Oh, no? Well, what am I supposed to think? You could try having a little more gratitude. I don't have to do this for you, you know. I didn't have to do any of this. You act as though I pushed you into this, but I pushed because I thought you wanted to be pushed. If you just wanted to be left alone, you should have said so. I tried to help you because I thought you wanted to live, for MOMO and me, and for yourself." Juli shook her head. "Now I see how very mistaken I was."

"Juli ...." The jagged underside had surfaced in his voice again. But he closed his eyes and said nothing after that.

She swallowed hard and felt rage burning through the knot of pain in her throat, and she knew whatever sympathy she had left for him wouldn't last. How could it last, when he didn't even want to live anymore? How could he ask her to accept this? How could _he_ accept it, knowing he would leave her and MOMO to fend for themselves when he was gone? Didn't he care about them? Didn't he love them? Did he have any feelings at all?

She walked around to the side of the bed and leaned over him, so close that she was sure he could feel her heart racing and her body trembling with rage, and in a voice like the edge of a knife she said, "I love you, Jan Sauer."

He opened his eyes, and it was like staring back into a sky without clouds--distant, clear, empty. Juli grabbed her connection gear and stormed out of the room.


	5. 5

**2.0.5**

In the weeks that followed, Jin called regularly with updates on the status of the investigation. More attacks had occurred since the first, and he had news for her every few days. "I'll be sending you a full report soon," he said one evening, "but in the meantime, there's something I thought I should tell you about personally."

"Could you wait just a minute?" She got up from her desk and shut the bedroom door. When she still lived alone, Juli had used the guest room down the hall as a private study; now MOMO slept there, and Juli had moved her office furniture into her own bedroom. "Sorry about that," she said, sitting down again. "Go ahead."

"Well ... I was looking into witnesses' accounts of a 'little girl' who appeared in connection with some of the attacks. I thought it was just a coincidence, but"--he hesitated, taking a deep breath--"I think I may have found her."

"You found ... a little girl?" Juli wondered if she had misunderstood. "And you believe she was involved with the terrorist attacks in some way?"

"Apparently. She was wandering around by herself after the Gnosis withdrew from the area. At first I thought she might have been in shock; she didn't seem to understand when I asked where she lived or who her parents were, and when I tried to help her, she just kept calling out for someone named 'Grimoire.' I don't suppose you're familiar with that name?"

"I'm afraid not."

"I see. I didn't recognize it either, but for some reason I thought you might."

"Really? And why is that?"

He took another deep breath. "She's a Realian. A variation of the 100 Series designed by your husband. Except ... it seems as though she may have a few non-standard components, and I'm pretty sure her memory's been tampered with. I'm just guessing from observing her behavior, but that's what it looks like to me. You'll probably want to do a more thorough analysis."

Juli suddenly felt cold and hollow, as if all the blood had drained from her body. _Another of your secrets, Joachim? What else have you been keeping from me all these years?_ Aloud, she said, "Where is she now?"

"She's here with me in Second Miltia. Since the records in her database tracking her previous ownership have all been erased, I was able to secure temporary custody of her as evidence for the investigation. I can bring her to you in person, if you'd like to have a look at her yourself."

"Please do that," said Juli, hoping her voice didn't waver. "At your earliest convenience."

He inclined his head again, a gesture somewhere between a nod and a bow. "Of course. I'll call you when I leave for Fifth Jerusalem."

"Thank you." She closed the connection and turned from her desk, her head reeling as she stood. The door to her room was ajar, and from the corner of her eye she caught sight of movement there. "Is something wrong?"

No answer came, but a few moments later she heard a door close softly in the hallway.

* * *

"Was that Jin who called last night?" said MOMO during breakfast the next morning.

"You were listening?" Juli glanced up from the report she had been reviewing for today's meeting. Now she understood why MOMO had seemed quiet all morning; she must have been waiting to ask since last night.

MOMO hunched down in her seat. "Um ... I didn't mean to overhear, I just ...."

"It's all right. You might as well know about it anyway."

MOMO brightened and sat up again, setting aside caution as easily as she pushed away her plate, the last half-slice of toast untouched. "So did he really find another 100-Series Realian that Daddy made different, like me?"

Hearing the anticipation in MOMO's voice, Juli felt something in her throat contract like a fist. MOMO didn't seem upset at all to learn that she had a sister she hadn't known about; to her it was good news, and Juli felt an irrational stab of resentment at the realization. Of course MOMO had no reason for concern. MOMO hadn't spent half the night staring at her bedroom ceiling while her mind worked out every possible implication and worst-case scenario and ran the results before her eyes like some kind of nightmare Subcommittee briefing involving her personal life.

"I don't know." Dropping her gaze to the screen in front of her, Juli scrolled back through the file, a progress report on the investigation findings. She had been updating it last night before Jin called. "He seems to think that he did. I guess we'll find out soon enough." At least she wouldn't have to include his latest report until next week, and by then maybe she'd have figured out how to present the news in a way that didn't have "conflict of interest" written all over it.

"That's wonderful! Will I get to meet her too?"

"We'll see." Juli deliberately made no effort to conceal the increasing tone of irritation in her voice; she hoped MOMO would notice it and drop the subject. "I'd like to examine her first. I have a feeling she may not be what we think she is." She tried to focus on her report, but found it difficult to concentrate with MOMO sitting in front of her. It wasn't so much her presence itself that distracted her, but the impression that MOMO expected her to say more, that she was waiting for Juli to continue, or at least to dismiss her from the table. Somehow, in spite of her enhanced observational powers, MOMO did not understand that the conversation was over. Frowning, Juli looked up from the screen. "Do you need something?"

"Um, well ...." MOMO began, but she hesitated when she noticed Juli's expression and shrank back in her chair. "I was just wondering if you were going to talk to Ziggy any time soon. Because, um, if you are, I'd like to talk to him too, if you don't mind."

Juli sighed. "I wasn't planning on it." They hadn't spoken since that day in the lab, and she suspected he was waiting for her to call first, but Juli was still too angry and too proud to bend. She closed the report with a fierce jab at the keypad and stood abruptly. "I guess it's up to him if he wants to call. Unless you'd rather contact him yourself, of course, but ...."

"No, that's all right. Um ... I noticed you and Ziggy don't talk very much anymore. And he didn't come to visit after his appointment last time. Are you angry with each other?"

Juli stopped in the middle of pushing in her chair and stood staring down at her hands on the chair back as if they belonged to someone else. She felt her grip tightening, but it didn't seem to have anything to do with her fingers going suddenly white. "I don't know." Dizziness swept over her, and she felt as though the tension in her throat had snapped like a band of elastic. She heard herself speaking, but she seemed to have no connection to the words. "I really have no idea, MOMO. Why don't you ask him? Maybe he'll actually talk to you; he certainly hasn't told me anything." She laughed, a humorless rasp that hurt her throat. "As far as I'm concerned, he's on his own. I can't help people who don't want to be helped. I can't go on pretending I care when my feelings are hurt. I'm not like you; I'm not programmed to be perfect. _I'm_ only human."

MOMO was silent, and when she finally spoke again her voice came out somewhere between a whisper and a gasp. "Mommy ...."

Ignoring her, Juli turned away and walked out of the kitchen. She didn't trust herself to look back. If she did, she would probably lose her calm again, and she didn't have time for that now. She retrieved her overcoat from the closet by the front door, realized she had left her connection gear on the table, and went back to the kitchen to get it. This time she made the mistake of looking. MOMO still hadn't moved from her seat at the table; she sat there with her fists bunched in her lap, her head bowed, her feet barely touching the floor.

"Mommy, I want to go home."

Juli pretended she hadn't heard. Without saying another word to MOMO, she left the apartment and drove to work with her hands tight on the controls. Her throat had already started winding itself into a knot again. Losing her temper hadn't brought any lasting relief, and instead she felt worse than before, sick with a kind of emotional nausea that left a bitter taste in her mouth. She couldn't think clearly enough to sort out how she felt, and still didn't know if she had meant half the things she said, or if she was sorry for saying them. For a moment she caught herself sympathizing with Ziggy--if his own emotions were as confusing as hers right now, no wonder he pretended not to have any--but as soon as she became aware of it, her sympathy flipped over into resentment again.

She steeled her grip on the controls and drove furiously, letting the car's automated safety system correct for speed and following distance as if absorbing the shock of her anger. At least some machines knew how to respond to human emotions. Driving calmed her, and by the time she arrived at her office she knew what she would have to do. That evening, she placed a call to the Foundation.

* * *

Gradually the sounds of his mechanically-assisted pulse and respiration synched with those of the machines around him until he could no longer hear them separately. This was the only time he felt at peace anymore, in the narrow parenthesis of time between sleep and waking, and he tried to prolong it as much as possible, to rest without losing consciousness, to maintain his awareness without coming fully awake. Thoughts, emotions, the input from his human and extra-human senses, the endless strings of data from his internal and external monitoring systems--the noise he usually perceived as defining what he was--drifted at the edges of his mind and he observed them as if from a great distance: remote, centered, unaffected, apart from himself.

Lately he had felt like one of the old gods of Lost Jerusalem, the one who stood in doorways looking in two directions at once. While he slept, he had his nightmares to contend with, and they had only grown more insistent now that he knew he was dying, now that he realized these next few years would be his last. It was as if all the broken pieces of the past inside him had risen to the surface again, and he didn't know if he'd have time to sort them all out. And when he was awake, he worried about the present, and about a future he might never see. He had resigned himself to living longer when he thought he still had ten or twenty more years left to live, but the test results from a few weeks ago had slammed his thoughts into reverse. He didn't know what to do anymore, and he still didn't know what he wanted for himself, if the question was even relevant--and every time he asked himself, he thought of Juli, imagined her waiting for his answer. If it mattered to him at all, it was because it mattered to _her_, so it was impossible to answer correctly, in a way they could both accept.

He was almost asleep when Jr. called him from the bridge.

"Hey, old man! You got a minute?"

He sat up, staring at the screen across the room until it shifted into focus. "What do you need?"

"Oh, uh ... sorry if I caught you napping. Listen, the Foundation's been doing some independent research into the Gnosis phenomenon lately, so we've been comparing notes with the Contact Subcommittee--sort of helping each other out, you know? Well, I was just on the line with Dr. Mizrahi, and she asked me to give you a message from her. Dunno why she didn't just call you up herself, but maybe she was busy or something."

"What was the message?" He felt suddenly alert, although lately the weariness of age had crept up on him again, another reminder that he had less time than he thought. Had it ever really gone away? After the first operation he thought it had, but maybe he had just convinced himself to ignore it.

"Oh, I think she just wanted you to call her whenever you got a chance. Sounds like she misses you." Jr.'s tone suggested the actual situation was slightly more complicated than that, but if he knew more, he didn't care to elaborate.

"I see." Ziggy lowered his gaze, and an awkward silence settled above the drone of the maintenance equipment and the faint hum of the ship's engines. For weeks he had debated calling her to apologize for what had happened in the lab, but he had put it off for one reason or another--because he didn't know what to say or how to say it or whether he should say anything at all. At the very least, he felt he owed her something. But he still didn't know what he'd say if she confronted him now.

Had she really meant what she said? He had suspected she felt that way, but he had never thought she would admit it. Actually hearing her say it had come as a shock, and as he sat there searching for an appropriate response, she had turned and walked out of the room, so that he never even had a chance to figure out what he would have said.

After Jr. closed the connection, Ziggy stood and walked over to the UMN terminal and called Juli. It was evening on Fifth Jerusalem, and she was still in her office; he recognized the sterile, neutral furnishings in the room behind her, and the large window framing a piece of the sky.

"Oh, it's you." For a moment she had looked surprised to see him, but no emotion reached her voice.

"I was told you were expecting me to call. Is everything okay?"

She stared at him as if in disbelief. "Yes. Fine. Everything's fine." Her voice cracked, and suddenly she sounded on the verge of laughter, but then she took a deep breath and steadied herself. "Listen, would you mind if MOMO came to stay with you for a while? It would be just until the investigation's over and things have had a chance to settle down. I wouldn't normally ask, but you know how I had to leave her at home alone for a few days after the attacks began, and, well ... with things the way they are now, Fifth Jerusalem could easily be a target. I just think she'd be safer with you."

"I understand."

"I've already cleared it with Gaignun Jr. and the Foundation, and they have no problem with her staying there, so if you're in agreement I'll send her over."

"It's all right with me," he said, "although, technically, you didn't have to ask for my permission."

"Will you knock it off?" She slammed the heel of her hand into her desktop, and the sound made him flinch. "I'm not giving you orders, Jan Sauer. I'm requesting a favor. That's all."

"Sorry." He looked down, reluctant to say what he knew she was waiting for him to say next, because he knew it would upset her, and he had managed to upset her enough already. But it seemed wrong to go on acting as though nothing had happened. "By the way ... about what we discussed in the lab ...."

Juli leaned forward with guarded interest. "Oh, have you changed your mind?"

"No, but--"

"Then I don't want to hear about it." She sat up, straightening herself in her chair and composing her expression so that nothing showed through the mask. "Well then. Here are your instructions. MOMO will be arriving on board the _Durandal_ in two days. You are to supervise her as necessary until further notice. Any questions?"

"No."

"Good. That will be all." She smiled pleasantly and cut the transmission.

* * *

Two days later, he watched as MOMO stepped out of the shuttle in the dock area, her head bowed and her face hidden by the overhang of her cap, a suitcase clutched in front of her like a shield. Juli hadn't accompanied her on the trip from Fifth Jerusalem, but one of the Foundation's employees got off the shuttle after MOMO and bent down to say something to her, patting her arm reassuringly. MOMO nodded and looked up. When she noticed Ziggy waiting near the escalators, she pulled away from the Foundation escort and half-stumbled, half-ran to where he stood.

He reached out with his left hand to take her suitcase for her and offered her his right hand to hold. They boarded the _Durandal_'s inner rail in silence, and MOMO didn't speak until they had stopped in the residential area and were making their way down the corridor to the room that had been prepared for her yesterday.

"I missed you," she said, without looking in his direction. Her grasp tightened on his hand. Even in her distress, she seemed to want to reassure him, to let him know she'd be all right, even though he should have been the one offering reassurance. He wanted to say something, but the appropriate words for the situation failed him, so they proceeded in silence until they arrived at her room, which faced his own across the hallway, and he showed her the access code to unlock the door. Handing her the suitcase, he waited in the hall while she went inside to unpack.

"Do you want to stay for a while and get settled in?" he said when she reappeared in the doorway.

MOMO shook her head. "Maybe later. It's all right for now." She reached for his hand again, and he observed with relief that her mood had lightened since she had arrived. "Can we go to the park?"

Following her back down the hallway, he remembered something Jr. had told him that morning. "MOMO, Jr. said he'd like to take you to the Foundation while you're here. I think he mentioned something about going shopping."

"Really?" This seemed to cheer her up even more. "I would love to. You should come too!"

Ziggy wasn't so sure about that, but he kept quiet; he didn't want to upset her again. When they arrived in the _Durandal_'s enclosed park, she let go of his hand and ran ahead of him down the stairs to the central fountain. The soft, pulsing lights of the park's environmental bugs scattered around her in the air. She turned as he approached, and he saw that she had one of them cupped in her hands; it lit up the cage of her fingers like a firefly in a lantern.

"I couldn't wait to see this place again," she said, holding her glowing hands out to him. "Look--" She parted her fingers, and the tiny bead of light escaped and drifted up to rejoin the others, following a programmed algorithm in a pantomime of instinct. He watched it fly around and interact with the other bugs in a seemingly random yet intricately choreographed pattern, and when he lost sight of it and looked back at MOMO he saw that she had dropped to her knees at the base of the fountain and buried her face in her hands.

He knelt in front of her. "MOMO, what's wrong?"

"Ziggy, I--I've done something terrible. Mommy is sad, and I can't make her happy again. I tried, but I just couldn't. She sent me back because she doesn't want me anymore. I'm so sorry!"


	6. 6

**2.0.6**

At least this one didn't look like her, not in the obvious way that the others did. The face and body had the same structure, the mannerisms betrayed their source in careful studies of the original, but the physical resemblance ended there--as if someone, maybe Joachim himself, had made an effort to conceal the similarities with cosmetic alterations. The differences were skin-deep, but they were effective. Even when Juli caught a glimpse of Sakura in this fair-haired, blue-eyed child, the pang of recognition lasted only for a moment. And at least this one didn't call her "Mommy" or try to manipulate her sympathies with false love.

Jin had brought her to the Subcommittee headquarters yesterday. Juli had been dreading her arrival for days, and she felt immeasurably relieved when the girl didn't even seem to recognize her, peering out from behind Jin's arm with the wary expression of a child meeting a stranger.

So far, the only potentially useful information she had managed to draw out in questioning had been the girl's name--Nephilim--and the name of this Grimoire figure, along with vague accounts of one of the recent terror attacks, scattered among the shreds of her memory that remained.

"I wonder who you really are," said Juli, half to herself, as she walked back across the lab to the chair in which Nephilim had sat all afternoon during her examinations. At the sound of her voice, Nephilim turned in her seat and stared up at her. Juli smoothed the little girl's hair absently, heeding the faint maternal impulse that told her this was the right thing to do.

How did it feel to have no memories? She tried to imagine it and was surprised when she found the idea comforting rather than frightening. Somehow, forgetting everything didn't seem so terrible anymore.

_Now I understand what you must have wanted, Jan._ She wondered what she had done to push him away--not that she really believed it was her fault, not entirely. She just wished she knew what had snapped inside him, and what he had seen in her that made him so afraid. It was a shame they had stopped talking to each other; right now she could have used his perspective, his way of making sense of things. He would have understood how it felt to go on living for no reason, forcing yourself to remember when all you wanted was to sleep and to forget. Perhaps he understood too well.

_Look at me. I'm not so different from you after all._ The only difference was that instead of ending her life, she wanted to start over, to cut off her ties to the past, abandon her reputation, and reinvent herself as something pure. But of course it wasn't that easy. If it was, she would have done it a long time ago.

She felt a tug on her overcoat and looked down to find Nephilim clinging to her, the flat silver-blue eyes gazing up at her with something between admiration and awe. "That's enough testing for today," she said, pressing a hand on Nephilim's shoulder. "You've been a very good girl. It's getting late. Would you like to go back to your room and get some rest?"

She nodded, and Juli helped her down from the chair and led her out of the lab and through the corridors of the research wing, back to the little room where she had been staying since Jin brought her here. He and Juli had discussed sending her back to his house in Second Miltia after the investigation, but until then she would have to remain here under constant surveillance. As long as the investigation continued, Nephilim was too valuable and perhaps too dangerous to be left unattended.

"Good night, Nephilim," said Juli. She didn't expect a response, and was not disappointed when she didn't receive one. The door shut automatically, locking itself on both sides, and Juli returned to the lab to back up the test results. Half an hour later, on her way out, she met one of the other six primary members of the Subcommittee waiting in the hallway.

"You're here late," she said, walking past him to the exit.

"Ah, Juli. Do you have a minute to talk?"

She glanced back reluctantly. "Yes, but it'll have to hurry. What is it?"

He nodded for her to come closer. When she did, he took a deep breath and looked around the hallway as if he expected to find someone eavesdropping. "Juli, the other Subcommittee members and I have been concerned about you lately. Is everything all right?"

Juli held back a sigh. "I'm fine." She was tired of saying those words, tired of wishing she could say them and mean what she said for once, or else admit the truth.

"Well ... all right." But he looked unconvinced. He had been an acquaintance of hers before his appointment to the Subcommittee. They had graduated from the same university and had worked together before the Miltia Conflict. Although she had never cared much for him personally, they had an easy rapport that came from years of cooperation, and she valued his technical expertise as a complement to her own. "It's just that ... well, the rest of the Subcommittee has discussed it, and we're willing to let you take some time off, should you find it necessary. I know the last few months have been stressful for all of us, and you've taken on more work than anyone else. And ever since that Realian turned up, you've been acting--well, I know it must have been quite a shock for you to learn of your late husband's connection with the terrorist incidents. We'd understand if you wanted to step down from the investigation for personal reasons--"

"No."

He blinked. "No what?"

"No, I'm not stepping down from the investigation. I have no intention of taking time off until the present situation is resolved."

"Juli." He took another deep breath, sucking the air through his teeth the way parents did when their children stumbled home with gravel embedded in their knees. Juli found his condescension infuriating--he was only a few years older than she was, and he had no right to patronize her that way. "You know I've worked with you for years, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for you. That's why it concerns me when I see you like this. Listen, I'm making a personal request now, as a friend. Why don't you take a little vacation, spend some time with your--well, spend some time at home, get some rest. I'll take over the investigation until you get back."

Juli had to clench her fists at her sides to keep from slapping the grimace of feigned sympathy off his face. "You know that I also have a great deal of respect for you," she said, barely holding her voice steady above her anger. "And I must respectfully ask you to mind your own business." She hissed the last four words and turned away before she lost her temper in front of him.

"Juli, wait--" But she had already rounded the corner, her footsteps echoing her retreat along the dimly lighted hallway. She walked until she was sure he wasn't following, and then she backed into an alcove and collapsed against the wall, gripping her head in her hands.

It was mutiny. They hated her, they wanted to get rid of her; for years she had suspected as much, and now they wanted to dismiss her from the investigation, perhaps even from the Subcommittee itself. How long had they been planning this? They must have waited, circling like predators until she betrayed some weakness they could exploit to bring her down. They would say she had resigned for personal reasons, but that would invite speculation, and judging from the speculation that surrounded her already, she knew exactly what the conclusion would be. Juli Mizrahi was emotionally unstable. Juli Mizrahi, ex-wife to the madman who had ushered catastrophe into the world, had contracted his strain of madness like some latent and inevitable disease. If her career ended now, it wouldn't matter what they said about her; she would already have lost the only thing of value she had left.

She picked herself up and headed back to her office to copy the rest of her work for the evening and check for messages. Among the usual mailings from within the department, she noticed one from a familiar address outside the government network. She hesitated for a moment, wondering whether she should just delete it without finding out what he had to say; on a whim, she hit the replay button.

"Juli, I'd like to speak with you about MOMO. If you have some time, I would appreciate--"

She deleted the message before it ended. So now he was ready to talk to her again? Let him see how it felt to be ignored for a change; she wanted to be cruel to something that wouldn't fight back. But she derived no satisfaction from the gesture. She had spent all her anger in the hallway, and now she sank back into her chair feeling tired and defeated. She wanted to go home. Not back to her apartment--she had never felt at home there, and the place seemed even less welcome since MOMO had left. But even MOMO was better off than she was; at least MOMO had someone she could go home to, someone who loved her and protected her and didn't care that she was just a copy of a dead girl.

Juli stared out the window and felt a chill settle over her as the last traces of color drained from the sky. After a moment, she leaned forward again and called Jin. He would be on Fifth Jerusalem for a few more days before he returned to Second Miltia.

"Good evening, Dr. Mizrahi. How did it go today?"

"It was all right. I'll tell you about it later." She hesitated. "Actually, why don't we go out for a drink tonight and discuss it there? Consider it my thanks to you for your help with the investigation."

Jin looked surprised, but he accepted the offer. After Juli left work, they met at a bar in a part of the city that catered to the upper class, which on Fifth Jerusalem consisted mostly of government officials and visiting diplomats. They sat in a dark quiet room and ordered drinks, and Juli explained the test results.

"It looks as though your assumptions were correct," she said. "Almost all of her memories prior to the most recent attacks have been erased."

Jin nodded gravely. "I thought so. How very strange. Were you able to find out anything else?"

"Not much. I'm afraid the tests only showed the extent of what's missing." She ran a finger along the edge of the glass in front of her. "There doesn't seem to be much left of her. I have the feeling she must be hiding something, but I don't have a clue what it is. She certainly is an enigma."

"I see." He leaned over the bar as if weighed down by thought, and his reflection in the polished surface leaned forward to meet him.

Juli stared at her own reflection and felt disoriented, as if the world might turn on its head and she would become the reflection, staring up through the bar at herself. She had hardly touched her drink, but the atmosphere in this place reacted with the desperation that had been gathering in her all day, wearing down her inhibitions. "I'll send you the lab reports tomorrow. But enough about that--how have you been?"

"Hmm?" Jin looked up as if she'd startled him off some other train of thought. "Oh, I've been all right. Worried about my sister, but that's nothing new." He laughed. "Actually, she seems to be doing better these days. I should be thankful. How are things with MOMO?"

Juli didn't answer. She saw her reflection staring down at her from the upside-down universe and had to look away to steady herself. Jin sat in silence, waiting; if he had noticed her reaction he was too polite to mention it. "I wonder," she said eventually, "why we make copies of the things we love. Do we think we can bring back what we've lost? Or are most people so desperate to hold on to things that they'll accept a replacement of the original, as long as they can pretend it's real?"

"Strange you should say that." He gazed into the shadows over the bar. "You know, my parents' graves are on Second Miltia. But they aren't buried there. A lot of the victims of the Miltia Conflict suffered the same fate."

"I know," said Juli. She had heard of entire cemeteries on Second Miltia that were empty--rows of gravestones marking plots of earth where nothing was buried. Some of them had dates from centuries ago, but the graves themselves were less than fourteen years old. The survivors of Old Miltia had wanted to bring their ancestors with them to the new world. Juli thought it was ridiculous. She understood the need for memorials and tributes, but why pretend to bury something that wasn't there? Sakura's grave was on Old Miltia, and Joachim, like so many others who had perished in the conflict, never had one; that was what she wanted to remember. She wanted to feel the emptiness and know that they were gone, that they would never, ever come back.

"Shion objected to it for years," he said, "and at first I had my doubts about it too. But I think--no, I hope it's what our parents would have wanted. Besides, if you think about it that way, Second Miltia itself is a replacement, a copy of a place that no longer exists. Yet the people who live there go about their lives all the same."

Juli nodded. "Second Miltia. Fifth Jerusalem. The galaxy is full of replacements like that. Just look at terraforming. No one has seen the earth in thousands of years, but we still turn every planet we settle into a copy of it. No matter how far the human race extends across the universe, we never stop wanting to go home. We're like children who refuse to grow up, always longing for something we can never have."

"You may be right," said Jin. "But then again, maybe 'home' isn't a place at all; maybe it's just a feeling we carry inside us. We think of it as something we've left behind, but maybe it never really existed outside of us in the first place. And if that's true, then it's possible to be at home anywhere."

Juli was silent again. What he'd said might have been true for some people, but for her it wasn't. For her, home was a finite point in time and space; it would never have any other definition. As long as she remembered what she used to have, she could never accept a replacement, and she didn't want to. With Sakura and Joachim she had been at home. That feeling was precious to her, and she didn't want to cheapen it by projecting it onto something else.

"It's getting late," she observed for the third time that night.

Jin bowed his head graciously. "I wouldn't want to keep you here. I know you have work to do."

"Yes, I'll send you those files." She paid for their drinks and stood, feeling dizzy as she stepped back from the bar.

He remained seated and looked over at her, his face set in that deep, sad smile again. "Thank you for the drinks. It was a pleasure talking to you."

"The same to you," she said, retrieving her overcoat from the seat next to hers and throwing it around her shoulders as she turned and walked out into the lights and noise of the street.


	7. 7

**2.0.7**

The next day MOMO got up early; Ziggy was still in his room when she came to the door. "Ziggy, are you awake yet? Jr. said you could go shopping with us!"

"I'll be right there." It seemed he had no choice. He didn't really mind going with them, except that he had work to do around the _Durandal_, and MOMO could use some time apart from him; she had followed him everywhere since she arrived, and while he didn't mind her company, he didn't think it was good for her to get too attached to him either. On the other hand, his concern for MOMO and Juli and for his own situation had begun to preoccupy his thoughts. A trip around the Foundation colony might clear his mind, or at least distract him for a while.

MOMO had already left by the time he stepped out of his own room a few minutes later. He tracked her through the ship and found her waiting with Jr. in the launch area outside.

"About time you got here," said Jr., turning out his wrist in a pantomime of checking a watch. "Hey, you're not mad that I invited you, are you?"

"No, it's fine."

"I figured you might want to take a break. You look so gloomy every time I see you lately, it even makes _me_ depressed." He rubbed the back of his head thoughtfully. "Although, on second thought, I guess you kind of always look like that."

MOMO stationed herself by his right arm. "Come on, it'll be fun!"

They set out in the direction of the twenty-sixth and twenty-seventh sectors and spent the morning wandering from one shop to the next, MOMO and Jr. taking turns deciding where to stop.

"Seriously, though," said Jr. as they waited in a clothing store later that day, "you do seem kind of out of it. You sure you're okay?"

"I'm just worried about MOMO." Ziggy tried to speak quietly so she wouldn't overhear. He and Jr. stood waiting for her near the dressing rooms in the back of the shop. He had always felt awkward in places like this; it was less of an issue in the Foundation, with its unusually high concentration of Life Recycling survivors like himself, but even here he stood out, literally and figuratively.

Jr. glanced back at the dressing room doors and moved a step closer to Ziggy. "Yeah, I know. I'm kind of worried about her too. Did you ever find out what happened with her and Dr. Mizrahi?"

"Not really. I don't think she wants to talk about it. She did say that Juli ... ah, Dr. Mizrahi seemed upset with her, but I got the impression it wasn't because of anything MOMO did."

"Damn, I thought they were getting along just fine. What did Dr. Mizrahi say when you talked to her?"

"The last time?" He hesitated, caught sight of himself in a standing mirror nearby, and briefly wondered if he really looked as unhappy as Jr. said he did. Ziggy didn't notice any difference, but then, he rarely took note of his own appearance at all. "I don't really know. She seemed a little stressed, but other than that ...."

"You two haven't been talking much lately, have you?"

Startled, he glanced back at Jr.. "How did you know that?"

"Well, you know." Jr. scratched the back of his head again, looking suddenly abashed. "Let's just say I still have a few ... not very admirable habits. But it's my ship, right? I gotta be able to monitor communications to know what's going on, right?"

"What exactly are you implying?"

"Look, I didn't mean to spy on your calls, I just wanted to, y'know, see how things were getting on with you and Dr. Mizrahi, all right?" He held up his hands in mock surrender. "I have to admit, it was kind of disappointing. The way things were going for a while there, I thought you two would be exchanging sappy love poems by now, or making up disgusting nicknames for each other or something. But I guess that's what _normal_ people do. And, uh, no offense, but you guys aren't exactly what I would call normal."

A muscle tensed in Ziggy's jaw. "Thanks," he managed.

"Uh, sure." Jr. relaxed a little. "But is that really all that's been bothering you lately? Just MOMO and Juli?"

"It's nothing you need to be concerned with." From the corner of his eye he stole another quick glance at the mirror and noted with relief that the heat he felt rising to his face didn't show.

"All right," said Jr., in a tone that suggested he remained unconvinced. He shoved his hands in his pockets and strolled off, his red head sinking out of sight behind a rack of discounted swimwear. After a few minutes, he let out a hoot of laughter. "Oh man, you've gotta see this."

Ziggy walked around to the other side of the rack. Jr. stood facing away from him, and when Ziggy approached, Jr. turned with a flourish and thrust something garishly bright into his face.

"Check it out! I bet Juli would totally go for it if you wore something like this."

He blinked, trying to make sense of the article of clothing in front of him as it came into focus. It looked like ... well, he wasn't sure what it _was_, but there wasn't much of it, and staring at it made his eyes ache.

Jr. grinned. "What do you think, huh? Is this the height of fashion or what? Man, you put this on and Juli will be _jealous_, 'cause every girl in the Foundation will be after you."

"That's not funny." He turned and walked back toward the dressing rooms, blinking to get rid of the afterimage.

MOMO peered out from behind the door to one of the rooms. "Ziggy? Jr.? I think I found an outfit I like!"

"Let's see it," said Jr..

She stepped out shyly and posed in front of the mirror, still straightening the white blouse and the sharp folds of the skirt. "How does it look?"

"Nice." Jr. gave her the thumbs-up. "C'mon, I'll buy it for you."

Ziggy nodded his approval and went to wait outside. As he walked away, Jr. turned to MOMO and began talking to her in a voice loud enough for Ziggy to overhear.

"... so I think I'm gonna buy it anyway and hide it somewhere, in case the old man changes his mind ...."

"Oh, Jr., that's so horrible."

Their voices faded into the noise of traffic as he stood outside the doorway. He should have expected Jr. to eavesdrop on his conversations, but was the rest of it--the way he felt about Juli, and the way she seemed to feel about him--really as obvious as Jr. made it sound? Even Ziggy hadn't been aware of it at first, and by the time he recognized it, he was in too deep to back out gracefully. But maybe what he had done wasn't any better than staying involved. He had broken away too suddenly, and now she was upset and confused.

The more he thought about it now, the more he realized how careless he had been. He had thought he was acting logically, but maybe he was just trying to rationalize it to himself. Worse than that, he had left her alone when she needed his help with MOMO. She must be under a tremendous amount of stress already, with her regular job and the investigation to manage, and expecting her to resume the responsibilities of parenthood on her own, with no preparation, had been worse than unrealistic; on his part, it amounted to unwitting cruelty.

He felt as though the ground had dropped away beneath him. Somehow he was responsible for all of this--Juli's frustration and MOMO's unhappiness as well as his own--and he hadn't even been aware of his part in it. How could he have failed to notice? This wasn't like planning a strategy for a mission; the lack of a clear solution, a straightforward path to an objective, left him feeling helpless. He had no idea what patterns to look for, what course of action to take to avoid disaster. Maybe he had never belonged with the rest of humanity anyway, even when he was still one of them. He didn't understand other people, and he certainly didn't understand himself, at least not that dark, irrational, fractured part of himself which remained from his former life. The work he had done for the last hundred years was where he excelled, and maybe he would have been better off as a machine after all. That way, even if he hurt someone, he wouldn't be able to feel any pain himself.

"Hey, old man!"

Startled, he turned as MOMO and Jr. came out of the store. He had been so absorbed in his thoughts that he hadn't sensed their approach. MOMO walked out wearing her new dress, and Jr. carried a small bag which he hastily stuffed inside his coat when he saw Ziggy eyeing it with suspicion.

On the street a crowd had gathered around the window of a shop displaying several holographic screens of varying sizes. Ziggy could see over the heads of the crowd to determine that all the screens showed the same image, and as he got closer--people tended to move out of his way instinctively--he saw what it was. This time there was no sinking feeling; he had already lost touch with the ground, and the numb sensation of floating in a vacuum swallowed any emotional response he might have had. He stood and watched and let his arms hang heavy at his sides. When Jr. and MOMO finally worked their way through the crowd to meet him, he hardly noticed their presence.

"Ziggy, what is it? What's going on?" MOMO gripped his arm, but he didn't feel it. Behind him, Jr. swore. On half a dozen screens at once, the Gnosis tore through Fifth Jerusalem's capital like children demolishing an imaginary city in a sandbox. The cameras cut to a tower that soared above the rest of the skyline, shuddering under the impact of repeated blows, and MOMO gasped. "That's where Mommy works!"

This time, he couldn't even close his eyes. The images came, and he processed them automatically and felt nothing.


	8. 8

**2.0.8**

The lights in the corridor flickered in time with the tremors that shook the walls and floor, threatening her footing as she ran. Nephilim followed her, clinging to her hand, and occasionally Juli risked a glance back at her to make sure she was still safe; she kept so quiet it was hard to tell.

They were too deep inside the building to evacuate, so Juli had placed a distress call from the lab, then took Nephilim and fled in search of a safer part of the building to wait out the attack. If Jin's reports were correct, if this incident was like the others, they would only have to wait a short time before the Gnosis retreated. Some part of her mind noted all this with perfect clarity while the rest of her panicked.

She yanked Nephilim around a corner as huge, distorted shapes shimmered and grew solid in the room ahead. Her heart knifed inside her chest; this was like Miltia all over again, maybe worse. The corridor she had ducked into was narrower and dimmer than the central hall, with a storage closet at the far end. She shoved Nephilim inside and pulled the door shut as she followed. They stood in darkness, the rasp of her own breathing filling the space above the roar of explosions and the groans of the building's framework, and the world receded into the distance. She knew they were really no safer here than out in the open, and if the Gnosis materialized in this room they would have little chance of escaping, but she felt calmer in isolation, and she needed to be calm to figure out what to do next.

At first it was too dark to see inside the room, but light bled in around the door and she began to make out her own faint outline and Nephilim's as her eyes adjusted. She sat down in the corner, hugging her knees to her chest, feeling the aftershocks of distant explosions shuddering up through the floor. Nephilim came over and sat down next to her, and Juli drew an arm around her and toyed with her long pale hair, trying to comfort them both.

She could hear heavy bodies crashing back and forth along the main corridor. If they left the room now they risked being caught, and if they stayed here, it was only a matter of time before the Gnosis found them anyway. In the sudden stillness of her mind a thought surfaced, and she knew, as clearly as if someone had spoken the words, that she was going to die. Not at some distant time and place in the future but in this room, today, now. And it didn't matter. She would watch it happen from a million miles off, staring down into the room from somewhere far away in space; she was there already, watching her last moments from outside herself.

She would have laughed at the irony of it, if she had any feeling left. After surviving Miltia and devoting her career to studying the Gnosis, she would become another of their casualties, brushed off the edge of the world as if her entire life had amounted to nothing more than a few grains of salt dust, mingled with the salt of everyone else who died here.

Nephilim gripped her sleeve suddenly and Juli looked up, aware that the noise in the hallway had changed. She heard footsteps approaching the storage room, and then a crash as something seized the door and wrenched it away. Outside, silhouettes moved in the flickering light from the corridor. A human-sized figure stood framed and backlit in the doorway, its eyes casting a faint red glow that didn't so much penetrate the darkness as highlight its edges. Juli sensed the moment when its gaze, tracking evenly around the room, came to rest on her, and they both arrived at recognition at once.

"KOS-MOS?"

"Target identity confirmed. Dr. Juli Mizrahi, do you require assistance?"

KOS-MOS's steps clicked lightly on the tiled floor. Juli suddenly noticed that the hallway outside had fallen silent and the tremors in the building had ceased. Standing over Juli, KOS-MOS bent down to her and held out a hand.

"Is she in there, KOS-MOS?" Shion appeared in the doorway behind her, straining to see inside. "Is everything all right?"

"Affirmative, Shion." KOS-MOS helped Juli to her feet, and Juli held out her free hand to Nephilim as they emerged into the corridor. The dim light stung her eyes, and her legs felt rubbery. She wanted to sit down again.

"Oh, thank goodness," said Shion. "I was afraid we were too late. We headed out as soon as we got the distress call, but when we got here and saw what had happened ...." She took a sharp breath. "Well, I'm just glad you're all right. And the little girl, too, I see." Smiling, she bent down to Nephilim, who buried her face in Juli's overcoat. "Don't be scared, it's okay now! My name is Shion. What's yours?"

Juli swallowed, but her voice still came out dry. "What about the Gnosis? Are they--"

"Gone," said Jin from the far end of the hallway. "They all disappeared at once, as if on cue. It's just like the other attacks."

KOS-MOS nodded. "In addition, all abnormal waveform activity has ceased within this sector."

"By the way," said Shion, after she had given up trying to coax Nephilim out of her reticence, "has anyone seen MOMO and Ziggy? They were with us a few minutes ago."

Juli's mouth went dry again. "They're here?"

"Yes, we met up with them outside," said Jin. He glanced out into the main corridor as if he expected to see them arrive at any moment. "They got here just after we did. They must have gone a different way when we split up."

Her legs still felt shaky, and she closed her eyes and leaned against the wall and waited for the dizziness to subside. Why had they come here, after what she had done? After she had treated them like objects, pushed them away, lashed out at them in anger? Surely not because they still cared for her. And if they did, she didn't deserve it. She wanted to crawl back into the storage room and hide from them, hide her shame from the world.

"Shion, my sensors detect another life form approaching. Identity unknown, but it appears to be a non-organic humanoid."

"What?" Shion looked around frantically. "There's not supposed to be anyone else here. The building was evacuated."

Jin stepped back into a defensive stance, reaching for the hilt of his sword. "Dr. Mizrahi, Shion, stay back. KOS-MOS, come with me."

KOS-MOS turned to Shion, who nodded. "Go with him. But be careful."

"Affirmative." KOS-MOS followed Jin into the hallway, and Juli watched from around the corner, sheltering Nephilim against her, feeling the warmth of the small body and the fast beating of her heart. Juli's own heartbeat was slow. She didn't know why she felt so calm, except that she had nothing left to be afraid of.

KOS-MOS fell first. Juli saw her stagger backward and stand reeling for a few moments before her head sagged and her body crashed to the floor. Shion ran out after her, but the gray-clothed woman knocked her aside like a doll. Juli pushed Nephilim to the back of the corridor and stepped out in front of her as the woman rounded the corner, her heavy, deliberate strides echoing between the narrow walls.

"If you want her," said Juli, "you'll have to tear me to pieces first."

The gray-clothed woman drew her lips together in the slightest hint of a smile. "That won't be necessary."

Juli felt the impact before she understood what had happened. Lights flashed in her head as it struck the wall, and this time her legs really did collapse and she slid to the floor in a daze. The world darkened at its edges, and she lost track of how long she lay there, drifting in and out of consciousness, before she heard Jin asking Shion if she was all right, and then she got up and staggered out into the hallway.

KOS-MOS's battered frame lay sprawled in the middle of the floor, its limbs broken and twisted in odd directions. Juli stared at it without comprehension. She couldn't think straight because her head ached and she felt as though her skull had been shattered and clumsily patched back together, and every time she stared too hard at something her vision doubled. And she was exhausted. How long ago had she last slept? She couldn't remember. Shion walked over and asked her something about Nephilim, and she tried to answer, but her words came out slurred. Nephilim was gone; she didn't know why, or how.

"Mommy?"

She wondered if she had imagined the voice, and turned toward it half expecting to see no one. But she hadn't imagined it, and there was MOMO, climbing down from a collapsed section of wall at the end of the corridor. And now MOMO was running, stumbling on the shattered floor tiles, calling out to her, and Juli took a few hesitant steps forward until they stood facing each other, not quite close enough to touch.

"Are you okay?" said MOMO. "I was so worried."

Juli closed her eyes and took a deep breath, hoping it would settle her. The pain in her head had begun to subside, and her thoughts seemed clearer now. When she looked again, MOMO was still staring up at her, waiting for her answer. "I'll be all right," she said, and for once it felt close to the truth. "How have you been?"

"Oh ... I've been okay too, I guess." MOMO hunched her shoulders and stared down at the floor, prodding a cracked tile with the toe of her shoe. "Mommy, are you still mad at me? For what I said?"

She took another deep breath. "No, I'm not mad at you. I shouldn't have said what I said, either."

"Then ... did you really mean ...."

Juli glanced up towards the end of the hall, then quickly lowered her eyes. "MOMO, I said those things because I was upset. Sometimes people say things that they don't intend, just because they're confused and frustrated and they don't know what else to say. But that doesn't make it right. It was wrong of me, and I'm sorry." She swallowed, looked up, and mouthed the words again. _I'm sorry._

From the far end of the corridor he stared back at her, his gaze piercing even at this distance. Then a pained expression crossed his face and he shut his eyes, and he didn't have to say the words in order for her to understand what he meant. _I'm sorry too._


	9. 9

**2.0.9**

From here the ground and the sky seemed equidistant, the lights of Fifth Jerusalem mirroring the stars. Except for a few dark holes in the city's web of lights, it was impossible to see the damage, or to imagine what had happened there only days before.

They could have gone elsewhere to be alone, and with less difficulty, but she had brought him here because she wanted him to see it again, the beginning, the turning point. When the elevator came level with the floor, she stepped off first, walked to the nearest window, and placed her hands against the glass, looking out to the curve of the horizon until his reflection appeared behind her own. She leaned back against him, and after a moment he set his right hand on her shoulder.

She stared down at the world, at the tracks of darkness scarring the lights of the city. "I wanted MOMO to hate me," she said, "as much as I wanted you to love me. That way, I would know you were both real."

He said nothing, but she heard him breathing steadily.

"I didn't believe she really loved me, because I didn't think I deserved-- No. I don't deserve to be loved. But she loved me anyway, because she had no choice, because she was programmed that way, and I didn't think it was fair. So I was cruel to her. Terribly, monstrously cruel. It was like an experiment. I wanted to test her, find out how far I could push her before I found her breaking point. And I almost succeeded. I came so close to pushing her away forever, and it wasn't even because I hated her. You can't really hate a person if you only see them as an object. No, what I hated was myself--so much that I thought everyone else must hate me too." She laughed bitterly and looked up at his reflection again; his expression hadn't changed.

"I used to hate myself," he said. "A long time ago. I think it must have been in my other life. I don't know why I stopped. I guess at some point I just realized it wasn't worth the effort--that it was easier to pretend I had no feelings than to try to deal with them."

"But I can't do that. Maybe you can, but I can't. I'm not strong enough."

"I didn't say you should do it just because I did. And you're stronger than you think."

She laughed again. "I'd like to believe that."

"Trust me."

"I trust you." Closing her eyes, she reached up to her shoulder and felt for his hand there. "It's me I don't trust."

For a while they stood in silence, suspended above the world.

"By the way," she said at last, "did you ever figure it out?"

He was silent for a few moments longer, and she wondered if he remembered. Then he shook his head. "Not yet."

"Oh."

"But ... maybe, for now, just asking myself that question is enough. It's been a long time since anyone asked me that. More than a lifetime." He moved slightly, and she turned to face him, and he looked her in the eyes. "Juli, this is what I do know. For as long as I'm still alive, I want to be there for you and MOMO. I may not be able to do everything you ask of me, but at the very least, I want to be near you, and I want to try to protect you if I can. And maybe we can try to learn from each other. I know it's not much of an answer, but ...."

Juli smiled. "It's a good start."

"What would you say if I asked you the same question?"

"I don't know." Her own answer surprised her; at any other time she could have thought of a hundred things she didn't have or wished she had or wanted to change. "I guess I want everything. Most of the time." She took a step closer, reached for his hand again. "But right now, maybe all I really want is this."

When he smiled back it was hardly noticeable, little more than a softening of the sternness of his usual expression, but she had been watching him long enough to know the difference. She put her arms around him and held on, as if by holding on tightly enough she could keep him here--and then, hesitantly, almost reluctantly at first, he was holding her too.

* * *

"So you're leaving tomorrow?" said Juli, leaning forward slightly over her desktop.

On the screen in front of her, Jin gave a slight nod of his head. "Based on the coordinates you obtained from tracking Nephilim's waveform patterns, we should be able to locate her without too much difficulty. The only trouble will be knowing what to expect when we get there."

"I see. It's a shame you can't take KOS-MOS with you. How are her repairs coming along, by the way?"

"The damage wasn't as severe as we thought," said Shion. "The First Division hopes to have her fully repaired and upgraded soon."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Juli.

"Still, it makes me wonder what we're up against," said Jin. "If that agent was able to defeat her so easily ...."

Juli swallowed hard and closed her eyes, remembering the woman in the gray coat advancing on her, and Nephilim's grip tightening around her waist a moment before the world exploded in a brilliant spasm of pain. Even now, the memory brought back a sharp ache that rang inside her skull like an echo, and she shook her head to get rid of it. Blinking away the specks in her eyes, she looked back at the screen. "I wish you both success."

"Thank you," said Jin. "We'll call one more time before we set out tomorrow, just to confirm our plans."

"Very well. I'll look forward to hearing from you then."

When the screen went blank, she stood and straightened the files on her desk, and then she took her connection gear and headed out, taking a detour past the construction barricades in the hallway. Parts of the building remained closed for minor repairs, but here, too, the damage had proven less extensive than it seemed at first, and most of the staff had already returned to work. Juli had insisted on returning to her office the first day it reopened after the attacks, declining the offer of a few days' paid leave extended to the rest of her department. It had already occurred to her to search for Nephilim's signal using the waveform data from the examinations, and Juli had wanted to track her down immediately, without wasting any time.

She stepped out onto the sidewalk, blinking in the late-afternoon light. The pavement still steamed with the morning's rain, but the air was clear now, and she could see the ravaged skyline of Fifth Jerusalem's downtown jutting defiantly around her, shored up by a gridwork of scaffolding as the city rebuilt itself.

On the way to her car, she called MOMO. "I'm leaving work now," she said. "I just have to stop at the lab for a while, and then we'll be home."

MOMO clapped her hands. "That's wonderful! I can't wait. I'll see you soon, Mommy."

"See you soon." She flashed a hesitant smile, then switched off the connection gear and got into her car.

* * *

This time he awoke to find the room empty, the two chairs along the wall unoccupied and his sleep monitored only by the machines in the corner emitting shrill pulses in time with his heartbeat. He didn't mind the solitude; it gave him a few minutes to reassemble his thoughts before she arrived.

He hadn't gone back to the Foundation since the day of the attack. Jr. had granted him an extended leave of absence from his duties there, and he had spent the last few weeks on Fifth Jerusalem. After some discussion, he had agreed to schedule a third appointment at the lab. Juli had made the arrangements for today, and when she finally walked in, carrying her coat on her arm--it must have grown warmer outside since this morning--he could read the results of his latest examination in her expression, even before she spoke.

"Well," she said, still breathing shallowly as if she had run all the way from her car, "it isn't getting any better, but at least it's slowed down. At this rate, it might even stabilize before the deterioration progresses much further. You might be able to make it another five or ten years without treatment. And by then, who knows? There's always Realian technology, and maybe--" She stopped when she saw the look on his face. "Sorry. I didn't mean to pressure you. We'll take it one step at a time, for now."

He shook his head. "No, it's all right. I was just wondering if you had been speaking with a certain representative of the Kukai Foundation recently."

Juli looked surprised. "As a matter of fact, yes. I was just in contact with Gaignun Kukai Jr. today. He mentioned ... something I'd like to talk to you about, if you don't mind."

"I don't mind."

She pulled up one of the chairs alongside the bed and sat down. "It was brought to my attention that your contract with the Foundation will be expiring soon. The original plan was to renew it for as long as necessary, but ...." She hesitated, pressing her lips into a tight seam. "Jr. had another suggestion. He offered to have your registration transferred into my name, so that, in effect, you would be assigned to me indefinitely."

"I see." Ziggy stared up at the ceiling, waiting for his thoughts to settle into order. "What did you say to him?"

"I told him no." Her voice was suddenly sharp, but without anger. "I said that as long as it was only up to me, I didn't want any part of it. I don't want to _own_ you."

He was silent. The dark spots on the ceiling didn't move. After a moment, he felt Juli's hand rest on his own, and he looked over at her.

"But it's not up to me. And the offer is still open." She slipped her other hand underneath his, so that she held it in both of hers. "And if you were in agreement ... then I wouldn't mind it either."

"I see." He grasped her hand, held it as firmly as she held his gaze with her eyes just then, challenging him not to look away. This time, he didn't have to think about his answer. "Tell him I said yes."

Juli closed her eyes and leaned forward with a faint, nervous laugh, resting her head against his arm, as if all the tension of the last few months had suddenly left her. "MOMO will be so happy when she finds out. Do you want to tell her, or should I?"

"Why not both of us? We can talk to her when we get home tonight."

"Yes, I like the sound of that." She got up, still holding his hand. "Well, come on then."

He stood and followed her into the waiting room, and out into the afternoon light.

_e.b. 02.2009 - 05.2009_


End file.
